“Yeah. A minor demon no one gave much thought to until the movie came out. Why? What are you doing?”
Pulling Cale’s bag open again, I dug through the main compartment for a pen. “I’m not sure yet. What about Jarri, or Erra?”
“I don’t know Erra, but if memory serves, Jarri was one of the Hittite gods. The god of pestilence, I think.”
Two mythological gods and a demon.Hmmm. “Okay, just one more question, then I’ll leave you alone. What about Dever? What’s that?”
“Lex, what the hell are you doing?” In the background, a voice spoke over a loudspeaker, announcing a delayed flight. Evan was at the airport. “Why are you asking me about demons?”
“I’m still trying to figure the ‘whys’ out. So, Dever’s a demon?”
He sighed. “Yeah, but I don’t think he’s real. When I was a kid, my grandfather used to tell me these stories to scare me. Made my grandma really mad, but gramps would insist the stories were true. One was about this demon named Dever, who was so evil the guardians of hell couldn’t control him. So they exiled him to the surface.”
“And let me guess, if you weren’t good, Dever would come into your room while you slept and drag you kicking and screaming into the bowels of the underworld.”
Evan chuckled, but he sounded more unnerved than amused. “No, that’s the boogie man. Dever doesn’t care whether you’re good or bad. He spreads sickness and suffering to everyone he sees.”
When no pen materialized, I pushed the bag away. “No wonder your grandmother got mad. What kind of bedtime story scares the shit out of a little kid before turning him over to the sandman?”
Over the phone, I heard the fizz of a soda being opened, then Evan gulped into my ear. “It’s not a bedtime story. It’s a legenddesignedto scare the crap out of little kids before turning them over to the sandman. And it works. But that’s all it is: a legend.”
Let’s hope…I thought, setting the report aside.
“Why are you asking about all this, Lex? What are you doing? If you’re involved in some kind of demon business, you need to get uninvolvedright now.You can’t win a fight with a demon.”
“Why not?” I had no plans to ever meet a demon, much less fight one. But being told Icouldn’tbeat one… well,thatirked me.
“Because demons are immortal. You could shoot them until the end of the world, and nothing would come of it. Same goes with your knife.”
Immortal. Damn. “What about pain?” The ace up my sleeve. “Can they be wounded?” I found it hard to believe that they couldn’t. There are no true absolutes, including invulnerability.
And that statement about there being no true absolutes…
“Of course they can—but not by you. Legend says they can only be wounded by weapons indigenous to hell. Or by one of their own kind.”
Legend, huh?Legend also said Santa lives at the North Pole, but I’d been there twice and had yet to meet him. “Thanks for the advice, Evan, but I’ve never even seen a demon. They’re restricted to hell—” Except for Dever, apparently. “—and I have no plans to go there.”
“So, what’s with all the questions?”
“I’d tell you if I could. But I can’t. And you should thank me for that. You don’t want to get mixed up in this. Trust me.”
“Fine.” Silence settled onto the line, except for the airport background noise, then Evan exhaled heavily into my ear, as if he were about to say something he didn’t want to say. Or something I wouldn’t want to hear. “Don’t call me again, Lex. It makes Emily nervous.”
I made his fiancé nervous? At least I’d accomplishedsomethinguseful… “Well, we certainly don’t want that. Poor thing might faint and call for smelling salts.”
“I’m serious, Lex. Don’t be a bitch.”
“Fine. I’m sorry I bothered you and the little woman. It won’t happen again.” I hesitated, my throat thick and sore with the effort to hold back everything I wanted to say, but definitely wouldn’t. “Thanks for helping.”
“You’re welcome.”
The phone clicked in my ear, and silence engulfed me, heavy and suffocating. For a minute, I sat still on the bed, doing and thinking nothing at all. Evan had every right to say what he’d said, and I couldn’t really blame him. I had been a terrible significant other—not really deserving of the title at all. And Iwasa bitch. I’d never denied that.
Still, hearing it stung.
But one minute of hurt feelings was more than any ex deserved. Back to business as usual. The hardbound book. And some kind of academic report about mythological gods and demons. What the hell was water boy up to?
Maybe the book had nothing to do with anything important. Maybe Cale just liked his literature on the dark side?
